Come Hellfire or High Water
by KyliaQuilor
Summary: Ward told her that someday she'd understand. And after what happened with her mother… well, like it or not, she did. And when she runs into him while on the trail of an Inhuman with the ability to create and conrtol fire… She finally gets the chance to tell him as much. Gift Fic for StriketeamSkyeward for the Skyeward Secret Santa.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. God no I don't.

 **Note:** Mostly out of force of habit, I'm calling her Skye here. Its just a lot easier to write for me. Besides, she's always going to be Skye to me.

 **Note 2:** This takes place in a post 3x01 continuity.

Written for Striketeamskyeward for the Skyeward Secret Santa Fic Exchange

Come Hellfire or High Water

By Alkeni

For once, Skye wished, could the search for a new Inhuman just go easy?

 _Apparently not_. Skye hadn't intended to tangle with the agents working for the new 'ATCU', but that had been how things had panned out. They'd come here on the reports of the new Inhuman too – someone with the ability to control fire. Not make fire, according to the reports, just control it. Direct it. Skye couldn't help but think of all the good such an ability could be used for – controlled fires to clear out brush in forests, fighting fires in residential areas or industrial accidents. And of course, what it might be used for in a fight.

 _The point is realizing that your power doesn't make you some freak, some monster._ It had been hard for Skye to come to terms with that, to realize that, but she had. When she realized there was _good_ she could do with her abilities, that she could use them to help S.H.I.E.L.D., to save lives...

Skye ducked behind a corner, her hand dropping to her ICER. She didn't want to ice the ATCU agents, if she had any choice, but it was better than them trying to arrest her like they almost had with Coulson.

"Put your hands up and come out where we can see you!" One of the ATCU agents barked. Skye peeked around the corner, looking at them. Five agents, all armed. _With real guns that shoot real bullets._ She couldn't get them all before they shot her, and she couldn't just shake their magazines out of the guns before getting shot either.

About the only think she _could_ try was collapse the floor underneath them – send them down to the first floor. It wasn't that far up. A few broken bones, but no one should die...

The sound of them moving quickly down the hallway towards the corner she was behind pretty much made the call for her. Moving quickly, Skye moved out from behind the corner, right into the path of the ATCU agents and their guns – but before she could break open the floor beneath their feet, before she could take them out, she watched them lower their guns and part for someone behind them.

Skye lowered her hand in stunned silence, inhaling sharply when she saw who it was. A face she hadn't seen in months, except in the occasional dream that she half-remembered, even if she'd be happy to remember none of it.

"Hey Skye." Grant Ward said, his handsome face wearing a real shit-eating grin. It only made her want to punch him even more. Immediately, she looked him over for weapons – Ward had taught her a lot about how to hide a weapon, and May even more. She didn't see any on him, but she also knew how good Ward was. He wasn't stupid enough to walk into this unarmed.

 _Then again, he doesn't need to be, if he's working for the ATCU._ And what the hell was the government's new powered-people hunters doing working with Grant Ward, murderous traitor extraordinaire?

"Should I even ask what the hell you're doing here, Ward?" Skye's hand dropped to her ICER, but she didn't draw it. The ATCU agents might have lowered their guns, but that didn't count for much. And now she was wishing she'd brought a real gun too.

 _I can't shoot him. I couldn't in Puerto Rico, and I can't now..._ And from the smug look on that bastard's face, he knew it.

"Just take the shot, Skye." Ward spread his hands. "I promise, these guys won't shoot back. They're under strict orders not to hurt you. You want to, I'll give you the free shot. I owe you that much." Skye looked him over again, trying to figure out what game he was playing. There was no sign of a bullet proof vest under his brown leather jacket, and... "Come on! It's your chance to finish what you started in San Juan."

"Hellfire, are you-" one of the agents started, but Ward just held up a hand, interrupting him. _Hellfire? What the fuck?_ Really? That was going to be his codename? _Better than the 'Sparkplug' handle Mack stuck Lincoln with, I suppose._

Despite herself, her eyes went back up to his face, getting a look of the five-o'clock shadow on his face that only added to his looks. _Goddamnit!_

"It's an ICER, Grant. It won't kill you." She tried to spit the words out, but... she couldn't.

She didn't trust Ward. She would never forgive him for what he'd done. But after her own experiences with her mother...

 _He was right. Someday, I would understand._

"Of course. I wouldn't make the offer if you had a real gun. What do you think I am, stupid?" Ward reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a black lighter.

"So you're working for the ATCU now? First it was Hydra, and now you're going to round up Inhumans and stick them in prison, just because they're different?" Understand what he did before, why he did it. But that didn't change the core problem. "And why the hell are you calling yourself Hellfire?"

"I'm not sure I'd say I work _for_ the ATCU." Ward replied calmly. "I'm working with them, because I like the idea of stymieing Coulson at every turn. A man's gotta have _something_ to do in his spare time." Ward turned to the ATCU agents. "Alright. You can head out." The agents looked at him, then nodded and left wordlessly, leaving the hallway empty but for the two of them. "In case you're expecting your partner to back you up, he's currently enjoying a little ATCU hospitality. Rosalind will probably let him go in just a little bit. I told her trying to get any intel from one of Coulson's people was probably not going to work out." Ward smirked, spreading his hands a moment. "As for Hellfire – well, actually, that was Rosalind's idea. Works for me."

 _And he's on a first name basis with the head of the ATCU. Just what the hell has he been up to?_

"So, what, all this about the fire-controlling Inhuman, just some trick to get me and Mack here? What happens now? Are you going to try playing 'kidnap Skye' for a third time?" Skye pulled her hand away from her ICER. She knew she was good – she wasn't lying to Quinn when she told him she was bad at being humble, what felt like an age ago. But she also knew that she wasn't going to be able to shoot Ward faster than he could react, not from the front. Not even with an ICER.

 _But he's not armed? What is he going to do?_

"No, there really is a fire controlling Inhuman around here." Ward brought the lighter to his empty hand and clicked it on. With an audible, if small, roar, the fire suddenly shot upwards and Ward took the lighter away from his hand, which was now full of crackling flames. "Cool, isn't it?" Ward turned his hand over, letting the fire almost... crawl over it, slipping between his fingers, all of staying in his hand, not spreading up to his jacket or falling to the ground. _And_ it wasn't burning him.

Despite herself, Skye couldn't hold back the snarky remark: "I'm not sure 'cool' is the right word for it, Ward."

"Are you calling me 'hot'? Skye?" Ward laughed. For a moment, they were back on the Bus, things back to the way things had been.

"Can I plead the fifth?" Then Skye brought herself back to the moment. They weren't on the bus, and right now, Ward was the enemy. "Fine, so you're an Inhuman. Why are you working with the ATCU again? Why didn't they... lock you up and experiment on you?"

"The ATCU doesn't experiment on Inhumans. And they didn't lock me up for the same reason you didn't get locked up by S.H.I.E.L.D. after I put a bag over your head and pulled you out of your van – I'm working with them." He shrugged, "They made a pretty generous offer."

"What could the ATCU _possibly_ offer you?"

"Well, a full pardon, for one. Rosalind has a lot of pull with all the right people. And... like I said, the chance to stymie Coulson forever sounds like a good use of my time." Even now, Skye didn't have an idea on how to tell if Ward was lying or not. But if that was the entire story, she'd eat a Diviner. _If I could find one, anyway._ "Anyway," Ward cleared his throat, "you don't have to stand here chitchatting with me if you don't want to. This wasn't a trap – not for you, anyway."

 _Not for me?_ "Then who the hell was it a trap for?"

"That spiky Inhuman that attacked you and a 'Lincoln Campbell' at hospital. I saw the picture – wasn't that the guy we rescued from the arctic base?" Ward shook his head, "either way, there's been no report from the perimeter, so he's obviously not coming-" There was the sound of something crashing nearby, to the left... on the other side of the wall.

"Or..." Ward stretched the word out, "He could have gotten past the perimeter somehow." She heard Ward mutter something about 'good help'. "We might want to-" The wall exploded and the creature Skye had seen at the hospital, in all its gray and spiney glory, brush through the hole in the wall it had burned out with its strange energy. "Run!" Ward flung the fire in his hand at the Inhuman, but it simply blasted it away with a shot from its hands, its own bluish... power pulsating. Skye was already moving when Ward caught up with her.

" _Great plan_ Ward!" Skye spat at him as they rounded another corner, then moved down that hall to reach another hallway intersection, the _thing_ right behind them, and "Lay a trap for the big scary Inhuman and send away the soldiers that could help you stop it!" Turning around, Skye aimed her powers at the ceiling above them – if she did this right...

The building started to shake, and cracks formed in the ceiling above them – just as _it_ came around the bend and towards them. Close closed her eyes for a moment and _thrust_ her arms out towards the cracks, sending a whole section of the ceiling and the floor above them just falling down onto the Inhuman...

Unfortunately, though it appeared at least pinned for the moment under the weight of everything that had just fallen ontop of it...

The floor beneath them started giving way. Before she could react or run, Ward grabbed her and they both fell through the floor, bits and pieces of drywall and wood falling down around them – Ward landed with a thud and an 'oof', but he'd used his body to cushion her fall.

 _Still putting himself on the line to protect me._ Skye couldn't forgive Ward what he'd done. But that didn't change a lot of other things. She picked herself off of him, then extended him a hand. "I don't think that's going to keep him-" She was proven all too right when she saw blue energy start to burn through the ceiling above them – right where the other Inhuman would be.

Skye looked over at Ward. A thought suddenly came to her mind, and as they stood there, she couldn't just shove it aside to deal with it later. _Fuck it._

"Ward. You know how you told me one day I'd understand?" She looked back at the hole Lash was stealing burning above them.

"And I remember you telling me you never would. What of it?" Ward snapped, lighting another fire in his hand, letting it grow larger than he had before.

"Well, I understand now. Have for a few months. We might just die in the next few minutes, so I want you to know Grant. I _understand._ "

The fire vanished from Ward's hand and he looked at her, as if searching her expression for something, then he shook his head, a small ghost of a smile there for a moment. "Skye, your timing _sucks_ , but come hell or high water, I'm making sure we get out of here alive."


End file.
